Toto, are we still in California?

RED STATE, BLUE STATE/
California's political map reflects the nation --
Dems capture metro area while vast interior
goes Repulican: [sic]

REPUBLICANS/
Conservative values drove election for many rural voters

John Wildermuth, Chronicle Political Writer

Sunday, November 7, 2004 (SF Chronicle)

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/11/07/MNGQO9NJOM1.DTL


As a conservative Republican in Lafayette, Linda Ellman wouldn't even put a "Bush for President" sticker on her car
for fear of what might happen.
But when the president won re-election Tuesday, she was surprised to find she wasn't alone.
"I go to a church where all four pastors are Democrats," Ellman said. "But when I called the church to find out the reaction to the election, I heard there had been a lot of high fives from closet Republicans."


The Bay Area is the Promised Land for California Democrats [....]

But the same divisions that have split the country into a sea of heavily rural Republican red states bordered with a few sections of more urban Democratic blue states have colored California's political map.
"You don't have to look very far east to find examples of why the election went the way it did," said Mark Baldassare,
a pollster for the Public Policy Institute of California. "There's plenty of evidence in our own state."
Democratic control of the state is in no immediate danger.
Democrats hold solid majorities in the Legislature
and a 33-to-20 edge in the state's congressional delegation.
[....]


A look inside the presidential vote, however, shows trouble brewing
for the Democrats.

Republicans won 36 of the state's 58 counties and probably will add one more when absentee and provisional ballots are counted in Mono County, where Bush and Kerry are now tied. Kerry won Sacramento County, 50 percent to 49 percent,
but nothing farther from the coast, except for tiny Alpine County
and Imperial County, where the population is more than 70 percent Latino.

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